CUDAS

Coventry University Depression and Anxiety Support

The CUDAS is a decision aid which aims to support health professionals in assessing depression and / or anxiety in people with long-term physical conditions. It also supports health care professionals in directing the patient to get the right support for them.

The screening assessment picks up over 90% of people who may have low mood or some anxiety, and so are very sensitive. If the screening assessment concludes that the person does not seem to suffer from low mood or anxiety then no further action is required. As the assessment is so sensitive, it may identify people as having low mood or anxiety that do not have a significant problem. That is why further tests are needed in order to be more specific.

The tools that give us specific feedback are the GAD-7 (measuring anxiety), PHQ-9 (measuring depression) and the suicide risk assessment. Both the GAD-7 and PHQ-9 are interested in how often a person has been experiencing symptoms, if at all, over the past 2 weeks only.

The measures have good reliability and validity in screening for anxiety and depression and assessing its severity. *